


young gun, gotta pull the trigger

by thatsparrow



Series: beau week 2019 [4]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Battle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-25
Updated: 2019-04-25
Packaged: 2020-01-31 18:22:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18596881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatsparrow/pseuds/thatsparrow
Summary: "Yasha?" Her voice sounds like something unused, rough and half-broken as a sword snapped off at the hilt. "What happened? Did we kill it?"--written for day four of beau week: hurt/comfort





	young gun, gotta pull the trigger

**Author's Note:**

> yesterday was beaujester, so today it's time for some beauyasha. takes place in a very slight canon divergence in which the m9 fight a behir while in the tunnel to xhorhas.
> 
> title (unsurprisingly) from "raise hell" by dorothy

Before the world went black, Beau remembers watching the jaws of the behir open wide, blue-white lightning brimming up bright enough in its throat that all she could see were the outlines of its teeth. She remembers thinking that she could've stood comfortably in the cavern of its mouth, could've clung to the back of its canines and it likely wouldn't have noticed her. She remembers the fly-buzz smell of rotted meat on its breath, the shifting expanse of its tongue. She remembers thinking that there were worse and slower ways to die.

And then she's waking up, not in the behir's stomach like she expected—on the off-chance she'd woken up at all—but in some other stretch of carved tunnel, hard-packed dirt under her shoulders and a bundled-up piece of fabric bunched under her head. Quickly disconsiders the notion of being dead because she imagines that, if she was, she shouldn't still be hurting quite this bad—pain singing loud through her body as if the lightning had struck through into her bloodstream, sharp-edged sparks dug in like burrs under her skin. She shifts a little against the rock, enough to feel the pull of a bandage wrapped tight around her right shoulder, an unnervingly large swath of cotton that stretches from her collarbone down to the base of her ribcage. Whatever she's done to herself this time, it must've been impressively unpretty.

Even as dazed as she is, there's a part of Beau that recognizes the space around her is too silent, too still to also be accommodating six other people. Propping herself up on her elbows, she looks around to see the cavern as vacant as she'd figured, empty but for herself and the stone-still silhouette of someone sitting a few feet away.

"Yasha?" Her voice sounds like something unused, rough and half-broken as a sword snapped off at the hilt. "What happened? Did we kill it?"

Yasha laughs a little, low and deep in her throat; even laying down, Beau feels herself go a little weak in the knees. "We did."

"Everyone else alright?"

"They're fine, if a little bruised. Fjord might have a new scar." Yasha draws a diagonal line across her bicep, muscles shifting a little under the skin as she does. Above them is a familiar string of luminescent globes, and as Yasha moves a little closer, a little further into the light, Beau can see stains of the behir's green-blue blood left behind on her shirt and skin: spots she must've missed washing off on the underside of her jaw, the inside curve of her ear, smeared into her eyebrow and along her hairline. "I'm sorry the others aren't here," Yasha says, glancing around the vacant stretch of tunnel. "They wanted to salvage what they could from the behir, but they should be back soon. Caduceus wasn't sure when you'd wake up."

"That bad?"

Yasha's eyes drop down to bandages around Beau's shoulder; they'd had to strip her down to her bandeau to treat the wound properly. "You'll have some new scars of your own, too." She seems tense, this careful distance kept suspended between them. "How do you feel?"

Beau laughs a little. "Shitty. Like I just played punching bag for a lightning bolt."

"Strange, but I do actually know what that's like." Yasha is quiet for a moment, hands restless in her lap, moving with the phantom motion of whetstone against steel. Beau doubts she's even aware she's doing it. "You—you weren't moving, after. I've never seen you fall and stay down like that. And there was a moment when it seemed as if—when I thought—" Yasha breaks off, face deliberately blank, jaw set in a tight line, like she has been turned to something of marble. "It was reckless, Beau."

"To be clear, I wasn't exactly intending to get hit like that. I misjudged — which one of us hasn't?"

Yasha must hear how Beau's tone goes a little sharp because she shakes her head, the honed edge of her jaw softening. "I—no. Of course you didn't. I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that. I just—" she swallows, pulls at a loose thread on the knee of her breeches like she's... _nervous_ , of all things. "I was—scared. More so than I've been in some time. I would like very much not to lose anybody else. Including you." Yasha pauses, clears her throat a little. "Particularly you."  

Beau's mouth goes dry, but maybe that's something to do with them being miles underground with limited access to water. Then again, maybe not. "Yeah?"

Yasha nods, slow. Her hands are tangled together like she's trying to keep them from going anywhere, from doing anything foolish like resting a hand on Beau's cheek. "Yes. And you, more than anyone else, seem inclined to run headlong into the fray—even against a foe whose teeth stood nearly as tall as yourself."  

"Other than you, you mean?" Beau says, careful to keep her tone light enough that Yasha can hear the humor in it.

She does smile at that. "Other than myself, true."

Maybe it's that she always feels a little disoriented, a little disconnected from herself after being healed, or maybe it's the lingering taste of ozone on her tongue—truer, maybe, that it's just because she wants to—but Beau reaches over her hand to where Yasha is sitting, offering a brief touch against her shin until Yasha glances up, surprised. She looks at Beau for a moment, careful, uncertain, before moving close enough that Beau can reach out to Yasha's hand, dirt-streaked and callused and warm against Beau's palm. She laces their fingers together, feeling as if it's been a long time since her hands have done anything but bruise.

"Thank you for staying," Beau says, quiet and embarrassingly earnest. Though she supposes now is the time, if ever; not like any of the others are around to hear.

Yasha runs her thumb across Beau's knuckles, a quiet promise in the touch. "Of course. Always—if you'll permit me."


End file.
